As promised yesterday, the Swype team have released an update to the beta version of their keyboard that brings all of the same features as the recent NS4G-exclusive version, including gestures, personal dictionary, and a new feature called Swype Connect.

Swype Connect is a lightweight background service that collects Swype-specific data and ensures the integrity and validity of the installation, while reporting usage details and device information back to Swype's servers. Like most apps that collect such information, Swype Connect doesn't gather anything personal, just basic information that can then be used to enhance and improve future versions.

The update is available right now on Swype's beta site, but you must be registered in order to gain access to it (and future versions).

Update:Looks like we killed the server for now, but at least Swype has a clever and entertaining 404 to make light of the situation. And it's back!

Swype Gestures - With this version, we've introduced several new gestures for quickly doing some of the most common tasks involving text. You've always been able to use some basic, core Swype gestures, like punctuation words, and jumping quickly to the editing layer. We've added 2 new categories of gestures with this version: Editing gestures and application gestures. Check out our video introduction to gestures while you read the specifics...

Send-to-Application - Highlight any text, anywhere, then send it directly to an application with a quick gesture. Currently supported apps are Twitter, Google Maps, and Facebook

Twitter - Swype from the Swype key to T-W to create a new tweet using the highlighted text

Google Maps - Swype from the Swype key to G-M to search Google Maps for the highlighted text

Facebook - Swype from the Swype key to F-B to create a new wall post on Facebook using the highlighted text

Personal Dictionary Management - Take control of Swype's personal dictionary with the new Personal Dictionary option in Swype Settings. Long-press the Swype key, then tap Options and you'll see 2 new entries. If you tap "Personal Dictionary" you'll be able to view, add, remove, and edit words in your custom dictionary. Press the "plus" button to add, "minus" button to remove, and tap any entry in the list to edit. You can also choose "Reset Personal Dictionary" to empty all words from your Swype user dictionary. Swype Connect - Prior to this release, licensing and device information polling was done entirely through our installation program (SwypeInstaller). This proved both unreliable and tedious for the user. It also left us unable to gather important measurement statistics that could help us improve Swype by learning about how our users are actually interacting with the keyboard day to day. This initial version of Swype Connect features two main components, and lays the groundwork for more innovative, experience-enhancing features in the future.

License Management - In order to keep track of how many installations of Swype there are, and verify that each installation has a valid license that matches the installed version and device, Swype Connect will periodically communicate with our servers and exchange some basic information about the device. This is all done behind the scenes, is guaranteed not to impact your ability to use Swype, and includes no personally identifiable information. Information collected for licensing/activation is not shared with third parties, except when required by law.Measurement Statistics Collection - The quality of our product is incredibly important to us, and in our ongoing attempts to better understand the user experience you have with Swype, we will begin collecting measurement data to help us identify errors and areas that need improvement. Swype may collect the following measurement data: Speed of text entry, how often words are added/removed from the Personal Dictionary (Note: We do not collect the actual words added/removed, just how often words are added and removed), and language selection. None of the measurements we collect are personally identifiable, and any measurements we collect are done efficiently to minimize transmitted data.

The privacy of our users is extremely important to us, and we're sure this will raise some questions. We encourage you to read this post about how Swype Connect works, and check out our privacy policy for good measure.Bug Fixes & Usability Updates - As always, this version of Swype includes numerous improvements over previous versions. You can find a full changelog directly below, but here's a quick list of some of the major fixes/updates:

Single-tapping a word no longer repositions the cursor to the end of the word

Words added to the dictionary will now retain their capitalization (e.g. Cyanogen instead of cyanogen)

I think that everyone had the same idea and overloaded their servers maybe sometime today.

SDL

I keep getting the "parsing" error. Damn. Here we go again.

SDL

EDIT: From Swype forums:
"We are still working to resolve some performance problems. The beta site is currently in maintenance mode while we make some changes to our server configurations. Thank you for being patient."

Jim

Surprised they didn't expect this kind of traffic =/

Gregg

I'll go back to bed then and have another go when I get back up at a sensible time of the day. I'm mainly writing this so I can see what time stamp appears on the message as all the others seem to think it is 8:30 or thereabouts in the morning of August 23. Where I am it is 3:49am on August 24.

Gregg

;-) That explains it then... I'm a day ahead and the update is having trouble catching me up... back to bed I go. I'm obviously a swypeaholic if I get out of bed at 3:30am to try and update.

The Twitter and Facebook shortcuts work but the Google maps shortcut does not work for me

aj

Lame. The whole reason I wanted it was for the custom skin. Color me disappointed.

Jim

heh. ya, i liked the custom skin, which is why i'm keeping this older vers for a while. works great for me

Umang

I downloaded and installed swype and saw the version number as 3.26.....
But after sometime it said license error and then i re installed and got back to 3.25....
What might be the reason??

Ian

Is this new version of swype better than the HTC trace on HTC Sensation?

Nik

Sadly I removed the previous version and now the newer one isn't getting installed! Any way to revert to previous version ?

David Daividson

I tried over and over. It installs the old version every time.

nzryah

i haven't found a way to just backspace over a character without deleting it ... as far as i have discovered Swype only lets you back-delete over your characters .... so .... i always ended up switching back to the qwerty keyboard and decided to uninstall Swype ... and that was an annoying dissappointment!

Gregg

If you Swype from the "Swype" key to the "SYM" key you will be presented with an alternate keyboard that has all the cursor movement keys.